profile: GRIMES
enigmatic art-pop maven
by C.M. Añonuevo
Clare Boucher was born and raised on the
west coast, originally from Vancouver. She now goes by the
stage name Grimes. Her interdisciplinary accomplishments
are impressive: she’s a visual artist, musician, singer,
songwriter, music video director, and producer. In 2006,
she moved to Montreal and began recording experimental
music. A student at McGill University, she studied
neuroscience, philosophy, and Russian Literature. There,
Boucher quickly became involved in the underground
electronic and industrial scene and started to put all her
talents to use. I had the good fortune of seeing Grimes
perform live at last year’s Sasquatch Music Festival in
Washington State. Her performance was nothing short of
stunning. Did I mention she studied ballet for 11 years? All
three disciplines—visual art, dance, and musicianship—
combine for an aesthetic feast you will not forget!
Grimes is young, inventive, and irrevocably
unique. She began performing in Montreal at a warehouse
venue run by a Vancouverite and friend, Sebastien
Cowan. Cowan is the founder of Arbutus Records and
also Grimes’ manager. Her debut album Geidi Primes was
released on cassette and demonstrates diverse influences
from electronica, hip hop, industrial, ethereal, and noise
rock, to name a few. Halfaxa was her second release. She
then signed with 4AD Records, who partnered with
Arbutus to release Visions in 2012. (It went on to win a
Juno for Electronic Album of the Year in 2013.)
Boucher describes her work as, “the only means
through which I can be fully expressive. It is both an
ethereal escape from, and a violent embrace of, my
experience.The creative process is a quest for the ultimate
sensual, mystical and cathartic experience and the vehicle
for my psychic purging. Visions was conceived in a period
of self-imposed cloistering during which time I did not
see daylight.”
Eclectic is an understatement. She’s sometimes
compared to the likes of Bjork and Enya, although
others have likened her to the alien love child of Aphex
Twin and ABBA. She cites influences such as Nine Inch
Nails, Cocteau Twins, Outkast, Nirvana, Swans, Marilyn
Manson, Skinny Puppy, and Joy Division, but her music
has ethereal, distinctly rhythmic elements that are hard
to define—it’s like a new genre you haven’t heard before.
She uses keyboards and synthesizers with occasional drum
and guitar accompaniment, looping and layering her own
vocals.
Whatever you define it as, the Grimes experience is not
to be missed. Check her out at grimesmusic.com. [sic]
10
[sic] spring 2014.indd 11
14-05-26 12:23 AM